In the three weeks since his trial began, Sam Bankman-Fried, founder of crypto exchange FTX, has watched in near silence as a parade of ex-colleagues, peers and other witnesses have taken the stand. They have testified to his greed, recklessness, bullying and chicanery. His lawyers have offered relatively little in …
Read More »Crypto Groups Gemini, Genesis, and DCG Sued for $1.1 Billion ‘Fraud’
In the state of New York, where Sam Bankman-Fried, founder of fallen crypto exchange FTX, is standing trial for fraud, the attorney general has accused a further three high-profile crypto businesses of lying to their customers. Crypto exchange Gemini, run by the Winklevoss twins, Cameron and Tyler, as well as …
Read More »A Chatbot Encouraged Him to Kill the Queen. It’s Just the Beginning
On December 25, 2021, Jaswant Singh Chail entered the grounds of Windsor Castle dressed as a Sith Lord, carrying a crossbow. When security approached him, Chail told them he was there to "kill the queen." Later, it emerged that the 21-year-old had been spurred on by conversations he'd been having …
Read More »‘Someone Is Using Photos of Me to Talk to Men’
Two years ago, late on a February night in Vernon, British Columbia, Melissa Trixie Watt was struggling to sleep, so she reached for her phone. She saw that she had a Facebook message. “How are you? I hope you are well,” read the DM from an unknown man. According to …
Read More »New Clues Suggest Stolen FTX Funds Went to Russia-Linked Money Launderers
As the criminal trial of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried unfolds in a Manhattan courtroom, some observers in the cryptocurrency world have been watching a different FTX-related crime in progress: The still-unidentified thieves who stole more than $400 million out of FTX on the same day that the exchange declared bankruptcy …
Read More »Inside FTX’s All-Night Race to Stop a $1 Billion Crypto Heist
By the evening of November 11 of last year, FTX’s staff had already endured one of the worst days in the company’s short life. What had recently been one of the world's top cryptocurrency exchanges, valued at $32 billion only 10 months earlier, had just declared bankruptcy. Executives had, after …
Read More »Apple's Encryption Is Under Attack by a Mysterious Group
Does the public have a right to see gruesome photos of animal test subjects taken by a public university? That question underpins an ongoing court battle between UC Davis and the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, an animal welfare group, which is fighting for the release of photos of dead …
Read More »Your Cheap Android TV Streaming Box May Have a Dangerous Backdoor
When you buy a TV streaming box, there are certain things you wouldn’t expect it to do. It shouldn’t secretly be laced with malware or start communicating with servers in China when it’s powered up. It definitely should not be acting as a node in an organized crime scheme making …
Read More »Sam Bankman-Fried Made Reasonable Business Decisions, Lawyers Claim
Sam Bankman-Fried’s cryptocurrency exchange FTX may have lost at least $8 billion in customer money, but he “didn’t intend to defraud anyone,” his defense team said Wednesday during the opening arguments of his highly anticipated trial. Though legal experts had long speculated that Bankman-Fried, or SBF for short, would take …
Read More »Sam Bankman-Fried Is a Terrible Client
In the weeks after Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX crypto exchange began to crumble last November, he chose to ignore the most basic piece of legal advice: Say nothing, or risk incriminating yourself. He took media interviews. He appeared on podcasts. He tweeted incessantly. He started his own Substack. He promised to …
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